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The Future Gets Wilder: Mantisfinches
'Words from the author:'As you may know by now I'm a pretty big fan of Dougal Dixon's The Future is Wild, a 14-episode TV series which speculated about what might happen to the earth's animals and ecosystems in the far future should the human race see fit to randomly not exist.It had three segments, each corresponding to an era in the future; a 5 million years hence segment, a 100 million years hence segment, and a 200 million years hence segment. The 5 myh segment mostly dealt with organisms that looked and acted rather normal and unexotic by todays' standards. I say mostly, because there were a few outliers that could not possibly have developed within 5m years of humanity's extinction and invariably seemed better suited to a documentary about alien life. Among these was an adorable yet perplexing creature: The Spink. Google it. Let's be perfectly clear here; the Spink is an impossibility. There is no way a bird like a quail (for that is what the show claims is its ancestor) could develop into a eusocial, burrowing, sausage-shaped creature with a head as big as the rest of its body within the timespan allotted. And if somehow it DID, it probably wouldn't look much like a Spink. However. What if it did exist? What then? We have a perfectly weird creature- Let's see if we can turn the weirdness up to an eleven, shall we? Let 95 million years pass- now we enter the time when Toraton rule the Bengal swamps, terrifying wasps fly like fighter jets through the Antarctic Rainforest, and Silver Spiders harvest the hormone-rich blood of the last remaining mammals on earth, high in what was once the Himalayas. But while all this is going on, a new creature has emerged in the forests of what was once North and South America. The Mantisfinches are creatures of my own invention. They are a diverse clade of predacious birds with a bizarre lifestyle and biology. Ranging in size from just a few centimeters to over half a meter and equipped with a set of vicious, heavily spiked forearms, they hunt among trees, reeds, and other three-dimensional environments for their prey. Mantisfinches are the world's only fully Ectothermic birds. Descended from burrowing creatures, they now rely on the warmth of the sun to heat their fluffy bodies- and, given the hothouse climate of the world, have spread far and wide, from Patagonia north to Alaska. Incapable of flight, Mantisfinches have repurposed their feathers for a completely different purpose. The short, hair-like body feathers are patterned in such a way as to provide camouflage, while around the mouth wispy whiskers help detect vibrations. In most species the broad remiges and retrices of their tail have narrowed, stiffened, and garnered hook-like projections. Attached to the pygostyle and highly mobile, the Mantisfinch can clamp them shut around branches, reeds, spiderwebs, or any other such subtrate. In doing so, it provides a firm anchor with which to hold the bird. But the most impressive feathers reside on the forelimbs- once wings, then shovels, and now tools for killing. The primary and secondary remiges have become vicious spikes, often brutally crooked, used for impaling and imprisoning prey. The wings are cocked back in a posture reminiscent of a mantis- hence the name- and then let fly with a sudden release. The eyes are large, bulbous, and can see in any direction independent of each other, much like a chameleon. The feet are zygodactl, perfect for gripping branches- although it does make it difficult to walk on flat ground. The beak is short, abbreviated, and serrated with huge keratinous denticles. Mantisfinches are solitary, but when a male and female meet high above the ground and an egg is produced, something must be done. Returning to the forest floor to bury it in the leaf-litter is out of the question; though they have lost the eusocial tendencies of their ancestors, the desire to care for their young is still strong. Thus, the female tucks the proportionally huge egg away in a pouch, or marsupium. It is at this point in the female's life that things get weird. Broody female Mantisfinches suddenly become endothermic as a response to hormones released during laying. The rise in body temperature warms the egg; but it also means that the mother must greatly increase her food intake, and thus even the most patient ambush predators have to chase their prey around the canopy. As well, the high body temperature makes them a target for snakes, which are both abundant and very fond of fresh poultry; as such, during the mating season female Mantisfinches become extremely aggressive and should be avoided if one wishes to remain attached to one's fingers. Some Mantisfinches have perfected the art of camouflage, with specialized whiskers that perfectly mimic the petals of orchids and other flowers. Others have feathers that imitate the colour and texture of lichen, moss, and bark. As well, their slow, ponderous motion is calculated to resemble a leaf or twig shaking in the wind; in such a way they can creep up on their prey. That tree octopus will never know what hit him. = by Pterosaur-Freak = Category:Fandom Category:The Future Is Wild Category:Birds Category:100 Million Years